Start off with your base coat and let your nails dry completely. I’ve tried it with both white and black nails, but I’m sure it would look awesome with some pops of color.

After your nails are dry, fill up a plastic cup with water. Colder than room temperature but not freezing is the temperature that I’ve found to work best. When it’s too warm, the nail polish won’t spread as easily as you want.

Try and get a good amount of nail polish on the brush so that it will drip off easily. Don’t hold it up too high or else the drip will sink right to the bottom of the water. You want it to hit the water and spread easily like the picture above.

You don’t want to let it sit too long so try to spray it immediately. I used spray hand sanitizer because my roommate had some in our dorm room but I’ve read that any alcohol-based spray will do the trick. (I haven’t tried it, but I think plain old water spray would work too because you really just want the polish to break apart.) It should look something like what’s pictured.

Place your nail in the pattern that you like the best. Hold it for a second or two and use the tooth pick or q-tip (I used q-tip) to move the excess polish away from your finger.

When you lift your finger, there will probably be polish all over but worry about that later!

Repeat with the rest of your fingers, clean up the excess polish and you’re done! The only downside with this method is that it can be hard to get every nail a similar pattern if that’s what you’re looking for. But, overall I think it looks pretty cool for such an easy process.